Lot 180: ASHIM PURKAYASTHA (B. 1967)

ASHIM PURKAYASTHA (B. 1967)
New Gumming - Wet Well & Press
signed and dated 'Ashim '04' (on the reverse, lower left)
photograph on archival paper
11¾ x 17½ in. (29.8 x 44.5 cm.) each
Executed in 2004; number three from an edition of three, set of 24 photographs (24)

New Delhi, Anant Art Gallery at Lalit Kala Academy, Borderline, October 2006
Kolkata, Anant Art Gallery, Borderline, November 2006

R. Hoskote, Ashim Purkayastha: Attached Wings, Exhibition Catalogue, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2004, one of 24 illustrated, p. 15

Ashim Purkayastha sorts through the minutiae of Indian everyday life, ingeniously identifying poignant yet often overlooked imagery and re-contextualizing it to reveal latent political and social messages. His works derive their layered meanings not only from their subject and composition but from their innovative use of media and process. Born in Digboi, Assam, as the son of Bengali refugees, Ashim Purkayastha moved from the far north-eastern regions of India, an area identified predominantly by its cultural similarities with China, to New Delhi, the bustling and mainstream capital of the Indian Republic. It is with the discerning eye of an outsider that Purkayastha dissects contemporary culture, and according to art historian Ranjit Hoskote, "his works embody the dilemmas and tensions of operating in a border territory that has been marked and now demarcates itself as the space occupied by alia, [or] Other Things." (R.Hoskote, Ashim Purkayastha: Attached Wings, Exhibition Catalogue, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2004, p. 4)

In 2004, Purkayastha began a series focusing on the iconography of the revenue stamp. His work within this genre encompasses a wide range of media and manifestations including defacing or altering sheets of stamps with his own imagery, recreating the design of various stamps on large scale canvases and his recent photographic works. Oftentimes, Purkayastha attempts to alter the stamp itself and recreate it on canvas in ways that subvert and challenge both the greater institutions of India and the vehicles for revenue generation. Hoskote continues stating, Purkayastha reinterprets the "pink revenue stamp with its Ashoka Chakra, one of the premier symbols of the republic; the postage stamp bearing the image of an amiable Mahatma Gandhi or a rush of water coursing through fields; the matchbox label, bearing a Native American chieftain in feathered headgear or an Olympic torch. In each case, he explores the hidden politics of the everyday, exposes it through a poetics of retrieval whose crucial tropes are the riddle, the puzzle, the spoof."

Nancy Adajania suggests in her essay Dadagiri: Ashim contra Gandhi, 2006, that his painstaking alteration of each stamp, or detailed replication of the stamp's imagery on larger canvases is, in itself, a type of meditation or dhyana, which focuses on a gaining clarity through focus and repetition. In this work, Ashim once again introduces this repetition in the meticulous documentation of him licking stamps. According to the artist, my work is a 'critique of the authority structures which symbolize this republic which has betrayed the idea that inspired its foundation; and also a questioning of canonical histories.' My ideas find their roots in my home region (Assam), in the people around me and the socio-political situation of the land. The independence of India came along with the historical partition of the subcontinent. The borders of the countries - Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India - were drawn on the basis of language, religion and caste and led to the birth of millions of identity- less people. Ashim Purkayastha (Artist Statement, Fabrice Bousteau, Made by Indians, Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris, 2007, p. 182)